The 17

I’m in Mossley -which is back around the ring road the wrong way according to Ben who lives there-on a sticky Tuesday night at the home of Rob and Julie [who are good friends of mine from the Analogue Cat days]. They have a new baby girl Frances who is pivotal to tonight’s proceedings [see score 9, The 17] and shares a birthday with my own daughter Pru, who was 17 this year. We talk about coincidence and calamity. We’re all here, all 17 of us, to make up the numbers of The 17 and to secure our lifetime memberships. Andy Woods has come along for the ride, he excels in the navigational zone and we only get lost the once. He’s also bought a copy of Bills book 45 though I’ve no idea if he got Bill to sign it. I must ask him. I did the very same thing myself a couple of years ago. As for The Manual-the book he wrote on having a hit record-I'm still looking for a copy and still looking for a hit record of sorts. Here in the oaken beam lounge Bill Drummond is perched at the end of the sofa telling the story of The 17, of happenings to date, the practice and the origin of the thinking. It’s a pleasant place to be; mulling over ideas and not missing Corry even though I am if you follow. I’ve not seen Bill or John for sometime so we have a bit of catching up and reconnection time before the start of the event. We are here, all 17 of us, to perform SCORE 9 from the book of 17 scores and Julie has set up a mic in the corner to record us. Bill rounds up his spoken word intro time down to 17 minutes from the typical 45 slot and there’s group pontificating on new music and musical meaningless and the quest to start afresh. Bill is questioning his capacity to be thrilled by music or to be entranced by new sounds. We revisited the Irish discussions of a world without fiddles or mandolins or those drum beater things..[it was a self deluding prophecy but a good one],imagine a world without instruments, without rhythm or signature or tempo or harmony or tone…Bills passion is as infectious as ever. Below is the notice that explains things far better than I can. Score 9 involves the 17 collectively humming [tonight’s note is C] and recording the work for five minutes. This will be stored and the process repeated one 5th note above or below the previous with succeeding generations; 17 generations to be exact at which point the amassed dis-harmonious recordings will be deleted- and the process will start again. The process always starts again. I like that. It will take 400 years or more to complete depending on each generations reproductive trends. At approximately 17 minutes past 7 the lights are turned off as Bill hits a middle C and we all begin to hum in unison. It’s quite pleasant really you can see why the Buddhists love it. Afterwards we debate the worn out excitement receptors in our respective brains and I accidentally have a roll up on the step with John just to keep him company; still it’s not clever and it’s not funny. Then I have a look around the new studio which is just wonderful as Julie says NO- she won’t sell me her Rickenbacker; which is what she always says when I always ask her. It’s nice to know it’s here though, in case we ever get to work here again. We have a band show in Sunderland [never been there before] on Saturday at an alternative indie music night club- details are on the dates pages. Then on Sunday night it’s Luke Haines at The Roadhouse here in Manchester; cant’ wait for that, be there if you can. VP x